Heri does Ruby on Rails + Web Design

It is really interesting to see how *conversations* start and explode on the blogging world. Take Twitter for example, who sparked thousands of posts for one month now.

_Above: Technorati says there are around 800 blog posts daily about Twitter_

The service is perceived as the new trendy tool to have. Any blog, be it a marketing, business, user interface or art blog talk about Twitter, the new _toy_ for the blogosphere world. I even stumbled today upon a post which begun by “‘my obligatory twitter post‘” Is Twitter the new me-me-too service? the myspace for bloggers and web designers?

Nearer to Montreal, Josh started by listing web services that fosters social changes and Roberto Rocha followed a day later with another post. I am happy they are talking about technology and society. I was interested in the topic of microcredit since December last year, and have been following Kiva since then.

If you haven’t yet visited their website, you should now. Actually I had the idea in December, thought about starting the project, and found later Kiva. For the anecdote, I had the not-so politically correct reaction “OMG, f*ck, they stole my idea!!”

Now, Kiva collects money from the North and gives them to microbanks and microinstutions throughout the world. You get to see the entrepreneur’s profiles, videos, updates and most importantly their projects and what they are doing with your money. Brilliant idea, that fosters entrepreneurship and that would really make a difference.

From a business point of view, though, I have to say I am not convinced. Kiva is funded by the Gates foundation and is made possible by a 0% cut from Paypal, their credit card processing partner. They are the only organization that Paypal has made this gift, as Paypal is eating the 4% credit card fees. This is unsustanaible: if any of their partner backs out, they will have no choice than closing their door. I have been mumbling and finding ways to make the idea ‘auto-sufficient’ but even today, there was no solution to be found.

However, it looks like that a dutch startup has made it. C4-World connects people from developed countries to entrepreneurs in Africa. They can transfer funds, but most importantly, they will share the knowledge and ideas. The relationship is said to be “business partners”, not just _funder_ to _someone in dire need_.

You assume here that europeans, or at the least the C4 visitors will be more business “enlightened” than a standard african entrepreneur and will provide the marketing, financial and operational advices to get the business started. I am from Madagascar, Africa and find this idea a tad _colonialist_, but I have to say that nothing bad can come of it. And we will have to see how things work before judging c4 founders.

As an entrepreneur, I prefer C4’s plan than Kiva’s. C4 is sustainable and everybody gets their share out of the deal.